Thursday, June 10, 2010

Tourism Breaking Records in Israel

Israel hosted more tourists last month than ever before in the month of May. That’s not enough, says Stas Misezhnikov, Minister of Tourism. From Arutz-7:

309,000 tourists visited Israel in May 2010 – an all-time record for the month of May – and an increase of 4% over May 2008, which was Israel's record year for tourism. 1.4 million tourists have visited Israel since the beginning of the year, an increase of 11% over the same period in 2008. Of these, 1.1 million remained in Israel for at least one night – an increase of 5% over 2008.

"In accordance with the Tourism Ministry's three-year plan,” Misezhnikov said, “an additional million tourists will have visited Israel in 2012, in total four million tourists and business people. We must be ready to offer them an attractive tourism solution... Competition with other countries in the region will intensify significantly in the coming months and years and, in order to compete, the ministry will allocate a significant portion of its budget to helping entrepreneurs.”

[...]

As part of this policy, the Tourism Ministry's Investment Administration approved on Tuesday grants worth 65 million shekels to five hotel projects in Jerusalem and the Galilee. The five are the Waldorf Astoria and a boutique hotel in Ein Kerem, both in Jerusalem, and HaGoshrim Hotel, Ein Hahula, and Prima Tiberias in the Galilee.

The full story is here. I have to wonder about the 300,000 tourists who didn’t stay in Israel for at least one night.